


Five Destinies and One

by fresne



Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate Universe
Genre: Gen, Podfic, Spoilers Series Finale, series coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-22
Updated: 2013-06-01
Packaged: 2017-10-19 17:03:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/203139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/pseuds/fresne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of the series finale, five ways it could have gone. Then one more for the road.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

One - The Rescue  
Camille blinked. Not because her vision was blurry, but because Richard Wolsey was standing in front of her and that was Not part of her vision of an afterlife. He smiled at her. "Camille."

She cleared her throat. "How?" She stepped out of her stasis chamber and Dr. McKay almost barreled into her clutching a computer and tapping furiously while shouting directions to a team of thoroughly cowed scientists. Well, except for Eli, who grinned and he was... wearing a different shirt. He was no longer here. Instead, his shirt declared, "Stand Back. I'm going to try science."

Camille tried to focus, but the sense of utter relief after all this time was like a string had been cut inside her and only will kept her standing. Richard spared a glance at Dr. McKay before saying in precise word drops, "Creative diplomacy." It was still odd to see Richard in a uniform after years of knowing the suited version. But it suited him.

She dismissed the vague pun and said, "What does that mean?"

Dr. McKay jabbed a finger in their direction. "Diplomacy. Ha! It was my scientific genius that got us here.” He grinned. “And now I'm smartest man in three galaxies." He glanced at a monitor. "No, no, no. That's not. No. Idiots." He rushed off to rain hell on someone's head. They weren’t her personnel. She focused on Richard.

She had a thousand questions, but what she really wanted to know was, "How long?"

"Three weeks." Richard glanced up and to the right. "We got lucky. The Lucian Alliance attacked Langara and we were able to renegotiate terms to come here after the attack."

He smiled some more. "We've brought supplies for the teams that will be staying."

Her heart sang on the corollary to his words, but what she said in return was, "I have documentation on the personnel who will be going back." They smiled at one another. Perhaps, a little foolishly, but why not. Soon, they'd be going home. She’d be going home. Three weeks. Home. Heart. They were the same word.

 

Two - The Drift

Lisa opened her eyes. She opened her eyes and there was something to see. She was sitting in a sunlit meadow full of wild flowers. In front of her, Eli smiled at her with Dale and Ginn hovering behind him, which was... unexpected. Eli said, "Hi." His smile was awkward. His smile said he had something awkward to tell her. Something she wasn’t going to like.

Lisa said, "Uh, am I?" She felt oddly distracted by the birds singing in the trees.

"You're not dead. Well, you're kind of dead. But only kind of. You're in Destiny's computer." Eli waved his hand at the trees and the flowers. "This is a simulation."

Dale sighed. "Your stasis chamber was failing. We had to upload you."

"It's a thing." Eli rolled his eyes. "It's part of the stasis pod setup. I figured it out. Oh," he made a short laugh, almost a bark, "a millennium ago. Funny thing. We've been traveling for a, um, while. A thousand years give or take. And you know," a quick shrug, "alive in the computer is better than the alternative. So, we've been uploading crew when pods fail."

"I'm dead and I'm alive." It was hard to get past that thought. But since she was her, she also had to ask, "Where are you getting the power to run this simulation?"

"Oh, it takes a lot less power to run a simulation than it does to keep a stasis pod going." Eli bounced on his feet.

Dale sighed, "Which is good, because, we've been drifting for awhile. But, it's um, good to see you."

She didn't quite know what to say to that. She wanted to ask about Ronald, but if he could be here with her, he would be. She got up out of the chair. "What can I do to help?"

 

Three - The Arrival  
Everett was frozen one instant and stepping out of the chamber the next. Eli blinked at him from a stasis chamber down the row. It had duct tape on it, but given that Eli was blinking at him, that was a good sign. Everett said, "How long have we been in stasis?"

Rush was already glowered at a computer. "Three years." He said the words like he was chewing on glass. Good to see some things didn't change. All around them, people were waking up and stepping out of their chambers.

Eli sighed. "We made it."

Everett nodded. "Yes. Now let’s see what we've made it to."

Behind him somewhere, Volker and Brody down-beat chorused, "Yay. More adventure."

"That's right." Everett rolled his shoulders and got to it.

 

Four - The Descent  
Chloe woke up first. She wasn't sure why the computer did that at first, but when she saw Eli's message, she understood. She didn't turn off the stasis pods right away. Although, there wasn't much time. She stood in the Observation deck and looked down at the lush green planet below.

She wanted to wake up Matthew first, but instead she woke up Colonel Young. As his eyes focused on her, she said, "We didn't make it. Eli didn't make it.” She swallowed the lump at that. “He realized that his math was off a week into. After. He. We. That we wouldn't make it." She shook her head.

Colonel Young stepped out of the stasis pod and it felt good to hand this over to him. To make this his problem. "We're in orbit around a planet that doesn't have an active Stargate. It’s on this galaxy’s galactic rim. It's, um, been three hundred years.” She swallowed again. “It took us that long to get here. Destiny's orbit is decaying. It's like it took everything to get here and then." She rubbed her face. The enormity of everything was just too much. But it was the Colonel's problem now. She focused on that.

"Right. Wake everyone up." He nodded briskly and didn't look at the broken stasis pod. "We can use the shuttle to go down to the planet." Suddenly he smiled. An odd quirk of an almost smile. "I wonder if this one will look like British Columbia too."

 

Five - The Farmer-Scientist-Waker  
Eli sipped an Algae mineral shake. It was pretty good (oddly true). Well, it wasn’t really a shake. It was Algae, frozen in one of the ship’s dead zones, and then thawed. Shake like. Anyway, it was good for his digestion. He tended to his rows of plants.

He was a farmer. Every day, he walked by Lisa’s stasis pod and said, “Thank you.” Because it was important to say thank you. It was also important to talk out loud in between weekly “sanity” (air quotes critical) trips home. He always made the air quotes around the sanity before he put the stone on the device and went to walk on a world and go to the mall. Report in to the SGC. See his mom. Catch a movie. Watch some tv. Dr. Who had been rebooted. Re-re-booted. It was good. Read some fic. Catch up on yuletide.

He was a scientist. He tended the daisy chains (hmmm, mixed much) of solar panels that turned the light of their passage into power fed back into Destiny. Made the place warmishness (not to mention alive) in his little self contained area of the ship. He didn't know who had picked them up on one or the other of the Descendants planets. He thanked all the stasis pods. He'd long ago lined up every reflective surface to maximize on light and feed the cells and the plants and him (with his algae shake).

Today, he was a waker of sleepers. After quite a lot (too much) thinking about it, he'd decided on "I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men," as his quote before he tapped the controls that brought Colonel Young awake again.

The Colonel blinked at Eli. He was younger than Eli now. Even passing him every day for thirty years, it was oddly surprising. The Colonel said, "Eli?" His name a question.

Eli shrugged his "You are here" shirt, because that's where they were (get a grip) and said, "We made it across. But um, my calculations were a little off." He shrugged again. "Carry the ten." He smiled and together they unpopsicled everyone. That night, they all had algae shakes (quietly because of the carry the ten and then not so quietly over carry the ten) and toasted the new galaxy that they were in.

 

One - Again  
Drifting, they find the ship of Ancients. Of Ancestors. A quarter of a cosmic year past the Wars of Drones. The Greater and the Lesser. Silent cold and dust. Their great vessels biological, bred and built for space. For in those long distant wars with machines that sought unloving-living technology, to win is to be warm and crafted. For as the ancestor-philosopher once said, “All true wealth is biological.” He also said, “Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when my fear is gone, I will turn and face fear's path, and only I will remain.”

They passed through. The Descendants. Stand now then. Into this place floats a captain. Hitchcock Wall. Born and built for space. His crew that dart along.

An age then since air bloomed in these corridors of cold metal. Blooms now air and light and warmth with the chloro-phosphors that they bring from their ships of space. Into time. Into Destiny.

Long since past when the Ancestors dead-Destiny carries could be breathed to life. But still. Tenderly, the captain gives the nod. The living ship tows where they came from to a star. Casts the ship into it and watches as it bloom itself alive in the brightness. Cast lots among themselves. They of living ships. Of living Descendants. The winners then gather their wealth of knowledge and bid farewell. Enter therein into Destiny. To be carried to where it is going.


	2. [podcast] Five Destines and One

"Length: Mp3, 6.07Mb 12:57  
Music Credit: Portion of U2’s Beautiful Day" 

[Archived here](http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/five-destinies-and-one)

**Author's Note:**

> If after reading my fiction here, you would like to read more about me and my writing check out my profile.


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